


You Will Always Be The Same

by mollykakes



Series: Lucky Now [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Spoilers, Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 15:52:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1863546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollykakes/pseuds/mollykakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In order to get information about Hydra, the Avengers Initiative brings in Grant Ward to find out what he knows. Fitz gets some closure, there's a blast from Darcy's past and Natasha expresses her opinion about being called "eye candy."</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Will Always Be The Same

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! I'm so glad everyone is still enjoying this series! Hopefully the next one shot will be up sometime next week (it's very relaxing to be able to write to wind down after studying!). Enjoy!

* * *

 

Darcy leaned against the wall of their observation room, watching as two Stark Industries professionals along with Hill escorted Ward into the interview room. She knocked shoulders with Fitz in support. Hill walked out, standing next to Natasha and Clint.

“So, what’s the play? Because he called me eye candy and I don’t appreciate it.” Natasha stated.

“I can go first.” Darcy said softly.

“Why do you want to go first?” Sam asked. “And this observation room is huge. I hope you know that.”

“We do.” Darcy smiled. “Anyone else right now would intimidate him or make him shut the fuck up. I don’t want any broken bones unless he absolutely deserves it. But if I remember New Mexico correctly,” she pulled down on her shirt so she showed a little more cleavage. Steve practically growled. “He’s a dude, I’m used to it. Plus, he’s not seen any news, he has no clue what’s going on, and he still thinks I’m the intern.”

“He’ll underestimate you.” Fitz told her. She nodded. “He underestimated Skye, a lot. It’ll work.”

“Fine.” Steve proclaimed. “But any trouble and I break his leg or something.”

“Done.” Darcy pushed off the wall. “I have this though, so…” She pulled the tiny syringe out of her pocket.

“What is that?” Clint asked.

“Truth serum. More potent then anything Shield has ever come up with. No way to fight it.”

“You terrify me.” Tony beamed as she headed to the door.

“Thanks Dad.”

 

Ward looked up as the door opened, then leaned back in his chair, looking as pleased as punch. Darcy smiled; she was so glad people were still underestimating her.

“The Intern?” Ward scoffed, attempting to cross his arms before he remembered that he was handcuffed. “That’s who they’re sending in? A poli-sci drop out with a taser?”

“I did break your buddy Ian’s nose too. Or did Garrett not tell you he had others that he groomed? You were, of course, the most useful, the most damaged, most stupidly loyal. Dumbest, really. Weakest, definitely.” She sat down in the chair across from him. “I’d say reading about your background made me slightly sympathetic but I know at least 4 people with worse childhoods than yours and instead of being weak and pathetic they’re Avengers.”

“What would you know? You grew up in the suburbs with mommy and daddy and when they died in a car accident your mom’s best friend took you in and you lived in the lap of luxury with Pepper Potts. That must have been so difficult for you.” Darcy laughed.

“So that’s what my Shield file said. Coulson was very creative.” She smiled as his eyes widened. “My mom was a stripper and a drug addict. I learned to wipe my own ass before my first birthday, and could feed myself by the second. That included step stools and oil splatters. When she died in a car accident I went to live with my dad and while I love my dad more than pretty much anything on this earth, I spent 19 years of my life pretending that he was my adopted mom’s boss. I had no friends; I went to college at 13. Everyone has a story, everyone has shit that they’ve been through, it’s the choices people make that define them. I could have wallowed, I could have a shit ton of issues, but here I am. Co-CEO of Stark Industries and Director of the Avengers Initiative. Darcy Stark, nice to meet you asshole.”

“Bullshit.”

“I wouldn’t lie about that. I don’t lie. I misdirect, I don’t say anything, but I don’t lie.” She looked at him. “How do you sleep at night? Knowing that you betrayed your friends, the family that cared for you.”

“Like a baby. You can see for yourself once I get out of here.”

“That’s sweet, but you’re not getting out of here.”

“You need information, I can give it to you.” He smirked.

“I don’t doubt that. But there are no deals. I don’t have that type of power. Nor do I want it.”

“You could always let met out though. I’m harmless. You remember from New Mexico. It must have been lonely, growing up like you did.”

“And you can fix that?” She asked. “It’s cute, really, that you think I’m about to fall for this. You’re not my type.” She leaned in closer. “But do you want to know a secret?”

“Sure.” He leaned in, mimicking her movements.

“Hill told Natasha what you said about her being eye candy. She and I are very good friends and she’s very protective of me, so I’m really looking forward to watching her kick your ass, just after we get all the information we can possibly extract from you.” She stabbed him in the neck with the syringe. “Truth serum. The real deal, you can’t fight it. You’re just going to feel relaxed and slightly euphoric. You won’t fatigue, and we can keep using it. One of my better ideas.”

“You bitch.”

“Yes, I know.” She smiled. “Two people have some questions for you. I’m not sure who’s questioning will be more uncomfortable for you, but I’m looking forward to it.”

“Coulson, and Romanov then?”

“No…” She stood up, opening the door. Fitz was on the other side. “Do you want me to stay?” She asked him quietly. He nodded before stepping into the room. He took her seat across from Ward and she leaned against the glass.

“GH 325?” Ward asked, looking completely surprised that his former teammate looked fine. And that he spoke out loud.

“It also makes you say what you’re thinking without being able to control it.”

“I am going to rip that smug look off your face once I get these cuffs off.”

“You can try, but I bet my boyfriend’ll knock you out first.”

“Fitz? He couldn’t knock out a fly.”

“No. Not Fitz. We’re pretty much the same person.” Fitz nodded.

“She’s in a relationship with Captain Rogers.”

“Shit.”

“Her dad’s also Iron Man.” Fitz added. “Why’d you do it?”

“Garrett told me to. You tried to kill him. He saved me.”

“And so you did what Garrett told you?”

“He saved me.”

“That’s all you can say about it? Garrett told you to do it, you owed him and so you did it?”

“It wasn’t easy.” Grant protested. “He taught me how to be a man. How to survive.”

“And such a good job you’re doing, here in a cage.” Darcy crossed her arms. This was more than pathetic. She’d hoped that there was more to his story, an actual reason why he would betray the team that cared for him. But here he was, drugged with her truth serum, with no reason other than someone told him to.

“Jemma and Skye, they said you were pure evil. They were wrong. You’re just weak.” Fitz looked at his one time friend, the reality of it sinking in.

“I am not weak.”

“You’re a puppet. You had no free will and you liked it.”

“Do you think it was easy?”

“No, Ward, I don’t. But I think it was easy for you to go with the flow and not ask questions. To do what you were told. To not make your own damn choices. And that’s the coward’s way out.” Fitz got up. “We trusted you. All of us. And this is how you repaid us.”

“Come on Fitz, don’t be naïve. Coulson doesn’t care, May’s ice cold, Jemma…”

“And Skye? What about Skye?” Fitz asked, not wanting to hear what Ward thought of Jemma.

“She was different. She _is_ different. There’s a monster inside; it will come to light. She was the 084, her parents destroyed the village looking for her.” Darcy looked back, knowing her dad would immediately go to work on researching. Well, Jarvis would at his request.

“And all that Ward, are the lies you made yourself believe to betray us all.” Fitz told him.

“He’s not the naïve one dipshit, you are. It’s sadder then being brainwashed. I’d have sympathy if you didn’t make every single choice.” Darcy told him. “Fitz, want to stand back here with me while Steve interrogates this piece of shit?”

“Gladly.” He walked back to the glass, standing next to Darcy. “We should have brought popcorn.” The door opened and Steve walked in.

“Shit.” Ward exclaimed.

“Everything you know about Hydra and Ian Quinn. Start talking now, it’ll be a lot easier if you do.”

“I didn’t think you’d be the type of person to threaten me.”

“I’m not. But I also let Natasha push Sitwell off a roof, and I wasn’t exactly all swell and bash Hydra in the heads during World War 2 either. I have very strong feelings about Hydra foot soldiers that try to kill my friends. Fitz – he’s my buddy. So we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

“I don’t know where Quinn is. He and Raina left with the Gravitonium.”

“Raina?” Darcy asked. “Scientist, wears flower dresses?”

“Yes. How’d you know?”

“None of your business.” She replied easily.

* * *

 She and Fitz left the room when Natasha joined Steve in the interrogation room.

“Raina?” Tony asked her.

“She went to Cal Tech, she was a doctorate student when I was a freshman. She didn’t go by Raina then, she was kind of like Voldemort that way. Jean Anne Smith. Adopted, like she thought I was…well, I am, sort of, but orphaned and adopted, like I was. She had large, nutty plans. I would have thought she was crazy but then I met Thor.”

“I am to be offended?” Thor questioned.

“No, just I never thought of science as anything beyond what I could create in a lab.” She explained. “She talked about the next phase of evolution…”

“Mutants?” Clint questioned.

“No. More. Mutants are humans with powers. They’re not as evolved what she was looking for. And more evolved then Thor.”

“So the Chitauri would have been right up her alley.” Bruce said. She nodded. “She burned out after her second year in her doctorate program. It was…very talked about. Especially when she got a job with Roxxon.”

“The first company that Cybertek bought out?” Tony looked at Darcy. “You know how I feel about coincidences.”

“They’re bullshit, I know.” Darcy looked at Fitz “What do you know about Raina?”

“Worked for the Clairvoyant – so Garrett. A true believer. She was Centipede, well what we called Centipede but was really Hydra, she was their scientist. She was in charge of the extremis-slash-centipede solution. And she was subjected to the theta brain wave machine that they used on Coulson. He didn’t tell anyone that, that’s how he learned Garrett was the Clairvoyant.”

“So, to sum up what you just said,” Clint began. “She’s bat shit crazy, incredibly smart, aligned with Hydra and strong enough to withstand a torture device.” Everyone nodded. "That's not frightening."

_“Everyone knows the only reason Shield took you was because you seduced Barton, and somehow they didn’t put him out to pasture after Loki…”_

_“Unlike you, he never had a choice there. Gods and magic, you understand.” Steve replied, bored. Natasha just knocked him out with an upper cut. “Really?”_

_“Oops?” She shrugged, sitting back down._

Darcy headed to the door, watching as Ward slowly came back to after Natasha’s punch. She opened the door. Steve and Natasha looked up at her, both expecting to be scolded. It was, quite frankly, adorable.

“No worries guys, the truth serum still has another 2 hours before another dose, I'd guess…he’ll wake up from it fine if you knock him out.” Darcy told them. “And Ward, don’t piss her off too much, I don’t want to have to explain your blood splattering the walls to the clean up crew.”

 

* * *

 “The transport truck,” Maria said, walking into her office. They'd kept Ward for two days before placing him on a truck back to federal prison this morning.  “With Ward. It was attacked. He’s in the wind.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“Cuts, scrapes, in medical. No one dead.”

“Peterson or…”

“Don’t think so. It was too precise. And we’d have a body if it were Peterson.”

“I don’t know about that.” Darcy said. “Skye said he wanted to be better for his kid, to right his wrongs. He killed Garrett. I think he gets that Ward was just as fucked as he was. Have you called Coulson?”

“They called him first – his prisoner. He’s on line one.”

“He’s just going to get more angry the longer he’s on hold, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“You sure you don’t want to…”

“No, Director, I don’t. Inter-agency discussions are your wheelhouse.” Hill smiled widely. "If that's all."

“I hate you Hill. So much.” She said, picking up the phone as Maria backed out of her office, closing the doors behind her. “Director Coulson.”

“You brought my prisoner to your tower and lost him…” Coulson roared. “I know you’re a Stark but…”

“You do not get to talk to me like this.” Darcy was calm, tapping her fingers against her desk. “Your organization doesn’t exist. Currently, you exist solely because I don’t think we need focus on the little shit, but don’t think I won’t let you figure out how to go about re-establishing a broken agency without the political capital I have. I will let you yell at me all you want, but if you begin to treat me like I’m stupid or lecture me I will hang up this phone and make your life very difficult, do you understand?” She heard Coulson’s ragged intake of breath on the end of the line.

“You’re right. I apologize. But where the hell is Ward?”

“I imagine with Cybertek.” She sighed. “We needed his Hydra intel. They’re all getting restless and the longer we wait to move against Hydra, no matter how strong our language is against Hydra in the press…”

“Its just words.”

“Exactly. We need action. So we need information, so we needed intelligence. Garrett was a top ranking Hydra goon. Ward was his puppet and only confidant. I have a very potent truth telling serum.”

“How’d that work out.”

"Well, he told me he wanted to rip the smirk off my face and Steve heard that, so Cybertek gets him in a more beat up condition than they expected.”

“Did Natasha have a chance to express her disdain at being called eye candy?”

“Yes. Yes she did.” Darcy smiled. “And Fitz had a chance too, to talk to him. To understand.”

“Good.” He paused. “You think he’s with cybertek?”

“Where else would he go? Who else wants him? Hydra doesn’t. He’s a faithful foot soldier but they knew it was never to him. But Raina and Quinn know what he means to your team.”

“And so he’s a weapon. Again.”

“They saved him. He’ll owe them.”

“Oh good.” Coulson replied. “Because that’s not terrifying.”

* * *

Ward raised an eyebrow as Raina entered his cell with a tray.

“I enjoy the hospitality but…”

“What do you know about Darcy Stark?”

“She’s a mouthy bitch, who makes very good serums.” He admitted. “She knows you.”

“She was a freshman, when I was a doctoral candidate at Cal Tech. She is the most brilliant person I’ve ever met. She could run probabilities in her head like a computer, and tell you the likelihood of something happening. She was 13. I thought she was different, part of the greater evolution. She’s just a Stark.”

“And this means what to me?”

“She knows we have you.” Raina paused. “So we made some modifications.”

“Modifications…”

“Welcome to the Deathlok program.”

* * *

 

Tony looked around as they all sat down, for the first time, in the Avengers Initiative Conference room. It, along with Darcy’s office, the observation and interview room and the Situation room were the only finished rooms on this floor. They were still working on the range, gym, and various other offices for the Initiative. So far they only had Darcy and Hill, but more would come. More people who wanted to save the world, to save the city, to save a person. It was a good system; Darcy had set up an unbreakable background check to weed out any prospective nut jobs. Interviews started next week. The table fit all of them comfortably with room for more. And there were cookies. Fitz was already helping himself to them. He wouldn’t be surprised if Fitz ended up being their first hire. If he wasn’t comfortable with the idea of going back into the field, with everything going on between him and Simmons and the rest of the team, they’d snap him up in an instant. Darcy had made it very clear that no matter Fitz’s decision, he’d always have a place in the tower with them.

His daughter was a freaking genius.

She pulled up the information on the holodeck in the middle of the table.

“So, on the way back to prison, there was an accident and someone absconded with Ward.” Darcy replayed the accident and the three men carrying an unconscious Grant Ward out of the overturned military vehicle.

“Who do you think has him?” Steve asked.

“I think the only people who actually need Grant Ward are us, Coulson’s team, and Quinn. He’s not a Hydra foot soldier; his loyalty was to Garrett and Garrett alone. But if Quinn and Raina want to take us and Coulson on…”

“Ward would have information. At least on Coulson’s team.” Natasha finished for Darcy. “Who’s the guy in the skull and crossbones deal? That’s…not overkill.”

“Well, super villains aren’t known for the fashionable attire. Aldrich Killian wore a white leisure suit.” Pepper quipped. Sam snorted.

“Have you seen Dr. Doom’s metal cage? No flare.” Tony added.

“So you think Quinn and Raina grabbed Ward?” Clint asked, re-directing the conversation back to the original topic.

“They have access to Skye’s research. All the files. Raina’s smart, and if I were her, that’s what I’d do.” Darcy rolled her shoulders, smiling as Steve reached over and rubbed the knot at the base of her neck.

“They know he can handle the berzerker staff then.” Fitz began.

“What’s a berzerker staff?” Sam asked.

“A berzerker staff? Those are guarded on Asgard.” Thor looked at Fitz. “How did you come by this?”

“An Asgardian warrior fell in love with humanity. He broke the staff into 3 pieces, hid them throughout Europe and lived his life here, on Earth.” Fitz explained. “A Norse hate group found the first third, that’s when we were brought in. We went to consult a Norse studies expert, we found the second at the same time he did. That’s when Grant touched it. Then the hate group got it. The expert was the Asgardian warrior.” Thor said something low and in an Asgardian. He’d have to remember that one; it was always good to have additional curses. Pepper glared at him, as if she knew what he was thinking. She probably did. “We found the third half at the same time as the hate group, he used it to take out the hate group. May held the whole staff but they won’t get to May.”

“So a completed berzerker staff exists? Here? On Midgard?” Thor questioned. “What has become of it?”

“It does, but I don’t know what’s become of it. It was at the fridge but…” Natasha pulled up the video.

“May used it to destroy Garrett’s Cuba compound.” Everyone watched as she threw it back into the building. “Not the smartest move.”

“So it could be there, or Quinn has it. Or someone unknown, which I think we’d all prefer at this point.” Steve told them.

“So, that completely made my worst case scenario even worst.” Darcy ran her hands over her face as everyone turned to her. “Best case – they just want information and a really good asset.”

“Worst case?” Pepper sighed, looking at her daughter.

“An extremis powered, Deathlok’ed Grant Ward with a berzerker staff.” There was silence around the table. Bruce, who’d been quiet throughout the entire meeting, laughed after a moment. Everyone looked at him.

“So, I’m guessing that’s going to be my job then.” He took off his glasses and cleaned them.

“Yeah. Probably.” Natasha grinned as she said it.

“What surface do you think will hurt him more to be smashed into?”

“We can test that.” Darcy and Fitz said in unison.

 


End file.
